a sick society
A People’s History of American Empire by Howard Zinn
New Video by the author of “A People’s History of the United States”.
Learning real history is sometimes very difficult. It’s nice to have someone who puts up very clear sign posts.
scorpion ninja trucks
so apparently youtube is now preventing you from embedding certain videos “by request”, so you’ll have to click on this one:
how fungi can save the world
Excellent TED Talk by Mycologist Paul Stamets. The breeding of mushrooms to save the planet. Fascinating stuff.
a history of multi-differential time
this is a great short animation portraying a few rocks perspective on the brief history of human development.
objects as consciousness at differing time intervals.
what do we do with our excessive cognitive capacity
Clay Shirky at the Web 2.0 Conference. Great talk on media, culture, and human potential. “Where do we find the time”?
abortion? the democratic race? oh my?
i think, at some time, you have to ask yourself… is this really the height of political debate that is needed in our country right now?
our country is being lost to those stuck on fundamentalism, bigotry, etc. It’s also being lost to those stuck on the throwing of “labels” in order to demonize and distract. I mean “bitter-”gate ?? Come on people. Hillary Clinton and her dysfunctional “team” are salivating at the heels of The Karl Rove Political Bible. Obama only continues to tell the truth, even if it sometimes has a faint air of arrogance.
remember ron paul?
where is he now?
well here he is today, in a “philosophic” discussion with with Bernanke:
these are our lives
“I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables—slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war . . . our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”
—Fight Club, 1999
Politics, Media, and Mr. Stewart
Jon Stewart once again shows us what journalism is and isn’t. The comments here on Karl Rove should be in all of our minds. The man at the center of one of the most serious crimes against America (the Valerie Plame outing), is now employed by Fox News.
America needs integrity. America needs justice. If the highest members of our society can get away with so much, how can we hope to ever maintain a peaceful and just environment for the society they represent.
Cultural Identification vs Geographic Proximation
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Hunter Lived His Dream
“Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of ‘the rat race’ is not yet final.”
—Hunter S. Thomson, The Great Shark Hunt, 1979 (link)
Parkinson’s Law
the amount of debate on an issue is inversely proportional to the issue’s actual importance
a look into iran
Here is a more human look into the country of Iran. Perhaps we should take more time to look at things from a humanistic perspective, and less from a delusional nationalistic militaristic frenzy. Let’s all take a deep breath.
stephen has “the word” for our generation
stephen on not just the student tasering, but a wonderful commentary on our “internet generation”. The apathy, and mental/physicial laziness of our generation is astounding. It’s thickness is suffocating.
a view of the religious/scientific polarism in modern culture
I probably won’t be posting clips from “The View” all that often, but this was just too amazing to miss.
This incident gives us an even more ridiculously look into the mind of a “true believing” Christian. (christian?). From the stubborn insecurity of the religious blonde to the humorously ignorant black mother.
Luckily Whoopi was there for a more rational, and more beautiful point of view.
(Click through to see the video)
Read the rest of this entry »
Message from Iraqi Soldiers
“President Eisenhower warned of the growing military industrial complex in his farewell address. Since Dick Cheney can now afford solid gold oil derricks, it’s safe to say we failed Ike miserably. After losing two friends and over a dozen comrades, I have this to say: Do not wage war unless it is absolutely, positively the last ditch effort for survival” … “In the future, I want my children to grow up with the belief that what I did here was wrong, in a society that doesn’t deem that idea unpatriotic”
- Spc. Alex Horton, 22, of the 3rd Stryker Brigade from armyofdude.blogspot.com
A Parable
The Fisherman and The Investment Banker - Anonymous
The American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The fisherman replied, only a little while.
The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish?
The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life.”
The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied, “15-20 years.” “But what then?”
The American laughed and said that’s the best part. “When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”
“Millions.. Then what?”
The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”
Quotes
Would you like to liberate yourself from the lower realms of life? Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness.
~ Lao tzu
Insanity in individuals is something rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.
~ Nietzsche
The ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr.
~ Prophet Muhammad
If we’d been born where they were born and taught what they were taught, we would believe what they believe.
~ A church sign in Northern Ireland
Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security.
~ Norman Vincent Peale
Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way; stop participating in it.
~ Noam Chomsky
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the 1990s it triumphed over democracy.
~ David Korten
Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship… Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
~ Nazi Hermann Goering
The modern conservative is engaged in one man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
~ John K. Galbraith
Before you speak, ask yourself… does it improve on the silence?
~ Shirdi Sai Bab
In all affairs, it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
~ Bertrand Russell
When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default, it can never be recovered.
~ Dorothy Thompson
Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.
~ Albert Einstein
You exist only in what you do.
~ Federico Fellini
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer
Pontius Pilate was the first great censor, and Jesus Christ the first great victim of censorship.
~ Ben Lindsay
(the words and life we have today of Jesus have been highly manipulated and censored. this is a fact)
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
~ Voltaire
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer
You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
~ George Bernard Shaw
Listen or your tongue will keep you deaf.
~ Native American saying
Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil; in its worst stage, an intolerable one.
~ Thomas Paine
Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.
~ Jawaharlal Nehru
Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.
~ Juvenal
War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.
~ Karl Kraus
We are condemned to kill time: thus we die bit by bit.
~ Octavio Paz
While the word is yet unspoken, you are master of it; when once it is spoken, it is master of you.
~ Arab proverb
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.
~Mohandas Gandhi
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
~ Thomas Jefferson
The vast majority of mankind is trapped within perceptual prisons.
~ Shawn Mikula
(r|R)eligious Quotes
The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.
~ Abraham Lincoln
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious, then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
~ Albert Einstein
In all the disputes, which have excited Christians against each other, Rome has invariably decided in favor of that opinion which tended most towards the suppression of the human intellect and the annihilation of the reasoning powers.
~ Voltaire
Religion, comprises a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find in an isolated form nowhere else but in amentia, in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion.
~ Sigmund Freud
A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
~ Albert Einstein
I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
~ Mohandas Gandhi
When encountering a new philosophy or religion, do not convert, but rather assimilate.
~ Shawn Mikula
I have examined all of the known superstitions of the world and I do not find in our superstitions of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all founded on fables and mythology. Christianity has made one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites.
~ Thomas Jefferson
There was a time when I believed in the story and the scheme of salvation, so far as I could understand it, just as I believed there was a Devil. Suddenly the light broke through to me and I saw a silly story, and each generation nowadays swallows it with greater difficulty. Why do people go on pretending about this Christianity?
~ H. G. Wells
You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
~ Bertrand Russell
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Isn’t killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?
~ Arthur C. Clarke
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.
~ Sir R. F. Burton
All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
~ Thomas Paine
The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion, the religion which based on experience, which refuses dogma.
~ Albert Einstein
Beware the man of one book.
~ Saint Thomas Aquinas
